Theatre and Drama
Whether you want to act, write, produce or devise theatre productions, you’ll explore, play, create, imagine, and perform on this practical degree. Combining theory with practice, you will have multiple opportunities to play your role in live theatre, including street performance.
How to apply Apply Through UCAS Book an Open Day Chat to Us/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/03-courses/performance/ba-theatre-drama-1.jpg)
Key Course Details
-
UCAS Code
W403
-
Start Date
September
-
Location
Cardiff
-
Campus Code
B
Fees
Home students
£9,535*
International students
£15,850*
- Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
The stage is yours in this immersive and broad ranging theatre and drama degree, built around a theatre festival and performances in all three years of your study.
DESIGNED FOR
If you want to learn in the UK’s third-largest creative hub and need a practical course to help develop and hone your interests, our BA Theatre and Drama is for you. With a variety of opportunities to get hands-on from the start, you’ll soon build a portfolio to kickstart your career.
Career paths
- Actor for stage and screen
- TV and film careers
- Director
- Workshop facilitator
- Drama teacher
- Scriptwriter
- Theatre maker
Skills Taught
- Devising – being creative with form and content
- Acting for stage and screen
- Scriptwriting
- Working well with others
- Facilitation for using drama to work with others
- Confident communication
- Critical thinking
Theatre and Drama at USW
Theatre and Drama Showreel
Course Highlights
Module Overview
With performance including a Fringe Festival at its core, this degree guides you through developing your skills and interests with a combination of practical work and seminars to teach vital theatre and drama skills. You can explore a broad ranging set of areas including applied drama, music and performance, storytelling, scriptwriting, technical theatre, acting, acting for camera, directing, employability, street performance and more.
Year One
Practical Lab: Acting
Perspectives on Theatre and Performance
Introduction to Devising *
Performance, Writing and Research
Year Two
Intersections: Devised Storytelling*
Theatre Festival
Applied Drama
Year Three
Professional Practice and Employability
Theatre and Education
Specialist Studies
Research Project*
*These modules can be studied 100% through the medium of Welsh
Your introduction to theatre, drama and production, year one ranges over acting, devised storytelling and creative and academic writing for theatre. You’ll put on productions, attend performances and carry out research, with opportunities to audition for student films.
Practical Lab: Acting
Study acting for stage and screen in this practical module taught by industry professionals.
Perspectives on Theatre and Performance
Attend and critique plays and performances in Cardiff’s thriving creative scene. Learn to create video essays as part of your academic work.
Introduction to Devising*
Learn about this critical part of the theatre production process by using classic texts to tell up-to-date stories.
Performance, Writing, Research
Utilise performance to discover empowering new approaches to creative academic writing.
*This module can be studied 100% through the medium of Welsh
Find and deepen your interests in your second year, with the theatre festival at the heart of practical opportunities. Develop your devising skills to put on a significant performance. You’ll also plan, deliver and evaluate a community applied drama workshop.
Intersections: Devised Storytelling*
Hone your devising skills in this focused module. Use classic Welsh art and mythology to devise your own fresh stories.
Theatre Festival
Play your part in putting on the Fringe Festival Initiative. You’ll work on it from curtain up and curtain down in different performance and festival contexts.
*This module can be studied 100% through the medium of Welsh
Applied Drama
Plan, deliver and evaluate a community drama workshop to develop your facilitation skills and see how drama and theatre can be applied in the community.
Take on an industry placement to secure valuable experience and contacts, then focus on and refine your skills in your chosen area with a specialist study. There will be even more performance and production opportunities plus the chance to respond to a live brief.
Professional Practice and Employability
Apply your theatre and drama skills to the world of graduate employment through a placement – and related employability-based assessments.
Theatre and Education
Refine your skills by planning, developing and delivering a performance workshop for a school.
Specialist Studies
Complete a specialist study in an area of interest. Indicative options are: acting for camera, music and performance or scriptwriting.
Research Project*
Develop your own practice. Carry out research and produce two final performances.
*This module can be studied 100% through the medium of Welsh
Course Highlights
How you’ll learn
Explore the theories, conventions and approaches of theatre in both an academic and practical way, helping to develop your professional and vocational skills. Assessment is through practical and written assignments including performances, presentations and essays.
You’ll experience workshops and take part in staff-directed productions and student-led rehearsals at our Cardiff campus, building your skills as you go. Eventually, you’ll be creating and producing student-directed work in groups for performance at the Fringe Festival and Immersed Festival.
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/01-campus-and-facilities/14-cardiff-facilities/GettyImages-1133752368.jpg)
Teaching staff
Learn from our team of experienced industry professionals drawn from backgrounds covering script writing, acting for stage and screen, music and performance, devising and academic writing and performance. We bring in industry experts for masterclasses and work closely with you to help develop your interests.
The team will help you express your identity in an inclusive environment through creative practices, drawing on their wealth of experience.
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/13-video-thumbnails/video-drama-and-performance.png)
Placements and work experience
You will do at least one industry placement as part of your degree, ranging from 30 to 70 hours, to help forge valuable connections and jumpstart your creative career. An enterprise scheme provides support if you want to develop a freelance career.
Our close relationships with Cardiff’s thriving creative scene mean we know many of the big names. Previous students have spent time with Hijinx and The Sherman Theatre. Plus, the university produces the Cardiff Fringe Festival Initiative and supports the Immersed Festival, giving students the chance to create amazing professional performances as part of their studies.
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/01-campus-and-facilities/12-campus-spaces/campus-spaces-cardiff-lecture-theatre-38475-1.jpg)
Facilities
Our Atrium building is home to a 160-seat theatre plus professional standard rehearsal rooms and studios on campus in the centre of Cardiff. Our innovation labs support virtual production and immersive theatre – at the cutting edge of current professional practice.
There’s a refurbished library and Advice Zone, with plenty of food and drink choices and a student union, the Zen Bar.
Plus, you’ll be immersed in one of the UK’s creative jewels. The Cardiff area has been home to a range of TV productions, including Sex Education, Dr Who and His Dark Materials and has a thriving live performance scene for students to both watch and take part in.
Equipment
At our Cardiff Campus we have a vast range of equipment that you will be trained to use as part of your course. To help support your studies we have a Media Loans facility that allows you to hire the equipment, at no cost, for you to then use for your assignments and practical work. We have both basic and high-end film and photography cameras, portable lighting and sound equipment as well as a range of professional studio recording microphones, instruments and associated equipment to use in our music studios or on location. The team of technical officers and instructors are also available to help you with any queries and technical issues.
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/01-campus-and-facilities/11-campus-exterior-shots/campus-exterior-cardiff-main-building-in-full-50355-1.jpg)
/prod01/channel_2/media/event-graduation-cardiff-28660-857X857-1.jpg)
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/01-campus-and-facilities/12-campus-spaces/campus-spaces-newport-library-27717-3-857X857.jpg)
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/01-campus-and-facilities/12-campus-spaces/campus-spaces-newport-library-27766-3-785X785.jpg)
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
UCAS Points: 96 (or above)
Typical qualification requirements:
- A Level: CCC to include a relevant art and design subject
- Welsh BACC: Pass the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Diploma with Grade C in the Skills Challenge Certificate and CC at A Level with a relevant art and design subject
- BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Merit Merit Merit in a relevant subject
- Access to HE: Pass the Access to HE Diploma and obtain a minimum of 96 UCAS tariff points
Additional Requirements:
The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.
English language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
We're here to help
Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.
Fees and Funding
£9,535
per year*£15,850
per year*ADDITIONAL COSTS
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
*Obligatory
Students contribute to the cost of some theatre visits and other enrichment activity
Cost: £100
We suggest students invest in a laptop and smartphone. Laptops can be loaned temporarily from the University if you do not have your own.
Cost: Up to £1000
Media Loans
You can hire a range of equipment, for your assignments and practical work, for free from our Media Loans facility.
Media LoansUniversity Quality Assurance
At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.
If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.
How to apply
All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS. You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time.)
Advanced entry
If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.
International admissions
International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
Life at USW
Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/07-student-life/75-cafe-bars-pubs/student-life-students-on-campus-treforest-su-52657-1.jpg)
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/01-campus-and-facilities/11-campus-exterior-shots/campus-exterior-cardiff-front-left-4650-1.jpg)
/prod01/channel_2/media/university-of-south-wales/site-assets/images/02-accommodation/23-pontypridd-accommodation/accommodation-pontypridd-double-room-50964-1.jpg)
